Let's talk Vinyl!

[Pedderrs]

Having recently purchased a vinyl player of my own, I would like to know what some of our Vinyl-collecting posters here have to say in terms of the do's and do nots. How do you maintain your vinyls; how do you store them, where do you buy them from etc. I've only owned mine for a week but already I'm very satisfied with the experience. Much more tangible and involving than simply clicking play on my Itunes.


This is my first ever purchase:

 

[gumbo2176]

Vinyl is old school, and I love old school. I have about 200 LP's in 33 1/3 RPM and a couple dozen real old 78's, plus a few dozen old 45's. I store them upright, on edge and tightly packed in their area. That way you can store many of them in a relatively small area. If you lay them down and store them flat, I'd not put too many of them on top of each other. Also keep them away from heat.

Keep them in their dust jackets and album covers when not in use. As for buying them, I head to thrift shops and dig through their stock. You'd be surprised how many good titles they have on hand and the price is usually pretty good at $1 each, or less at times. Another place to check out is pawn shops, but expect to pay a bit more there. Only advice I can offer is to remove the album from the sleeve and check it for cracks and scratches before purchasing. Also make sure the album is the one that is suppose to be in the sleeve. Sometimes customers will mix them up, but not often.

 

[Pedderrs]

Vinyl is old school, and I love old school. I have about 200 LP's in 33 1/3 RPM and a couple dozen real old 78's, plus a few dozen old 45's. I store them upright, on edge and tightly packed in their area. That way you can store many of them in a relatively small area. If you lay them down and store them flat, I'd not put too many of them on top of each other. Also keep them away from heat.

Keep them in their dust jackets and album covers when not in use. As for buying them, I head to thrift shops and dig through their stock. You'd be surprised how many good titles they have on hand and the price is usually pretty good at $1 each, or less at times. Another place to check out is pawn shops, but expect to pay a bit more there. Only advice I can offer is to remove the album from the sleeve and check it for cracks and scratches before purchasing. Also make sure the album is the one that is suppose to be in the sleeve. Sometimes customers will mix them up, but not often.

Thanks for the insights.

My Wowee Zowee LP came with a digital download code, but there's been a mistake because it sends me a download for a different album. I've already sent the site an album so hopefully that gets rectified.

 

[Roy Jones Jr's Jab]

Most of mine are polythene covers If the purchased vinyl does not come with covers there normally about 50 for a fiver the cheapest ones and TBH they do the job for what they are.

I've brought a few flight cases a few years back about £30+ a pop pretty good place for storage as well preservation nothing wrong leaving them on book cases and ect. but when some records have cost a fair they deserve a bit of luxury.

 

[Roy Jones Jr's Jab]

In terms of buying online Discog's is a great place for bargains and rarer items.

 

[ElKiller]

How much does a decent record player go for nowadays? I bought one of those combo deals about 5 years ago cause I had hundreds of LP just wasting away in my garage but it was such a piece of crap I stop using when the novelty wore out.

 

[Pedderrs]

How much does a decent record player go for nowadays? I bought one of those combo deals about 5 years ago cause I had hundreds of LP just wasting away in my garage but it was such a piece of crap I stop using when the novelty wore out.

This one cost me £300 and it's an entry level player.

 

[Broxi]

I like the idea of that old sound quality with the crackles etc but it is completely against my current philosophy of minimum clutter, everything digital, fewer but more quality physical possessions.

 

[Tuff Gong]

I use Diskeeper 2.0 Antistatic LP Inner Sleeves to protect the discs from dust & scratches & Diskeeper Ultimate Outer Record Sleeve 2.5 for storing the whole package in.

For some reason new albums these days more often than not come in a paper inner sleeve which can be terrible for discs over time as the paper dust can be abrasive so whenever I get a new album I give it a good clean with a soft dust cloth & put it in an antistatic sleeve & then put it into the paper inner sleeve.

The outer sleeves I get are nice & think & you can fit gatefold & double albums into them. They have a nice glossy finish to them which really brings out the colour in the album artwork.

I use the following sites for buying albums:

WOWHD - displays prices in your local currency & has free postage (obviously postage is hidden in the price but they have a good range at reasonable prices (AUD $15-$30) as well as more specialised collectables.

eBay - anything I can't find on WOWHD I can usually find on eBay at a reasonable price.

Discogs - anything I can't find on eBay I can usually find on here but expect to pay a higher price.

A mate told me about another couple of sites that I haven't checked out yet - Music Stack & eil.

It's also worth checking out the official sites of bands you like for their online stores - I grabbed a bunch of Fu Manchu albums from their official site & also some Monster Magnet albums from Napalm Records - good for all sorts of metal albums.

 

[joe297]

I've got a couple of Celestion SL700's to play my records on, My record player is not great but my speakers are safe!

I keep all my records in a plastic dust cover. As mentioned above you can pick them up cheap as chips.

I purchase mine from either a local record shop or at the record stall in the local church. There is a geezer that holds them about once every two months, and has all sorts of second hand records on offer. I normally give him a few requests of things I am after and he usually delivers. I started my collection after a guy from my old football team randomly gave me 8/9 Springsteen records knowing I was a huge fan. He has over 3k records and every now and then just gives me random duplicates he has.

 

[Matty lll]

I just store mine upright in the packaging they came with, though sometimes I swap out the inner sleeves for anti-static ones if they don't come with them. If it's an old record that I have bought I also give them a clean with some anti-static spray and an anti-static brush.

For buying them I either get them in two local record shops (Head, which sells modern records or Dragon Records, which has old second hand stuff) or else on Discogs for stuff I can't get here. I get a lot of stuff of Discogs and it's usually cheap enough depending on what you're getting, though sometimes postage can kill you. But even then you can still get good deals. For example I got a 1966 mono pressing of Sunshine Superman in VG+ condition for around £25 including postage that was coming from america. Considering you'd pay around £20 if you were buying off amazon I think prices like that are very good. I got my record player a year and a bit ago and I've got a pretty decent collection now, a mix of older pressings, reissues and a couple of new ones:

Also:

 

[Trail]

I've got a copy of Guns N' Roses' Live Like a Suicide EP on vinyl - original US pressing (it was never released on CD until it was remastered on Lies). Cost me a fucking fortune. Often when I'm short of a few quid I think about selling it...then I return to reality and remember there are only 9999 others of these worldwide...I'm keeping mine.

I also have a fully signed copy of SOD's Speak English or Die album on wax, that's going to the grave with me.

 

[Claypole]

This one cost me £300 and it's an entry level player.

Nice, is it belt driven?

 

[Pedderrs]

Nice, is it belt driven?

Indeed, it is belt driven.

 

[dftaylor]

I love how they look, but I'm already a terrible hoarder. I've got thousands of books, DVDs, blurays, comics, etc, not to mention my computers and growing family of guitars. So vinyl would be the final step towards basically living in a comfy storage unit.

That said, I got a couple of albums by a band called Sophia, signed by the man behind it, and I'll probably frame those when I get back home.

 

[Trail]

I love how they look, but I'm already a terrible hoarder. I've got thousands of books, DVDs, blurays, comics, etc, not to mention my computers and growing family of guitars. So vinyl would be the final step towards basically living in a comfy storage unit.

That said, I got a couple of albums by a band called Sophia, signed by the man behind it, and I'll probably frame those when I get back home.

I'm not too sure how old you are, d, but I remember vinyl being king (pre-1988) and the trip to the shop to buy your album, sitting on the bus on the way home reading the sleeve notes, looking at the cover...the anticipation of what it might sound like, everything. Kicks the fucking cunt out of mp3 and Compact Disc.

 

[dftaylor]

I'm not too sure how old you are, d, but I remember vinyl being king (pre-1988) and the trip to the shop to buy your album, sitting on the bus on the way home reading the sleeve notes, looking at the cover...the anticipation of what it might sound like, everything. Kicks the fucking cunt out of mp3 and Compact Disc.

I'm 34. Cassette was a bigger thing when I was growing up. CD by the time I was in 3rd and 4th year and really getting into music. Some of my friends loved vinyl even then, but mostly cause they were into classical musicians and it's still seen as the best way to listen to that stuff.

There's definitely more of a commodity to vinyl. I never understood why they moved to plastic packaging when card sleeves would have been much easier to store, cheaper to produce, and more sustainable, but I suspect it's to do with breakages.

 

[Claypole]

Indeed, it is belt driven.

Good. I remember when cheaper decks did away with belts, and bigging up the fact with claims of "Electronically controlled direct drive digital dc blah blah".

I like the decks where you have to take the platter off and put the belt on a different pulley to change the speed. There is more time and labour involved with vinyl, but that means when you put an album on, you tend to listen to all of it, and appreciate it.

These days, people moan when they can't access their playlists within 3 seconds, and think an album is just a list of singles released at the same time.

 

[Trail]

I'm 34. Cassette was a bigger thing when I was growing up. CD by the time I was in 3rd and 4th year and really getting into music. Some of my friends loved vinyl even then, but mostly cause they were into classical musicians and it's still seen as the best way to listen to that stuff.

There's definitely more of a commodity to vinyl. I never understood why they moved to plastic packaging when card sleeves would have been much easier to store, cheaper to produce, and more sustainable, but I suspect it's to do with breakages.

I'm 39 so I got a few years on you...but roughly we're from the same era.

My parents had an old Sanyo stereo system, stacking thing with double tape deck, radio etc. I remember playing vinyl Definitely Maybe on there pretty much full whack...it sounded like the band were in the room with you...something CD will never, ever replicate.

 

[Trail]

Good. I remember when cheaper decks did away with belts, and bigging up the fact with claims of "Electronically controlled direct drive digital dc blah blah".

I like the decks where you have to take the platter off and put the belt on a different pulley to change the speed. There is more time and labour involved with vinyl, but that means when you put an album on, you tend to listen to all of it, and appreciate it.

These days, people moan when they can't access their playlists within 3 seconds, and think an album is just a list of singles released at the same time.

...and skip the songs that weren't singles...fuck me...

It's a damn good job RAMONES weren't a singles band, they'd have sold fuck all.

1-2-3-4!!!

@ant-man
@Phantom